Why Biodiversity Matters

"We can't live without life support" is the title of an article in the Daily Gleaner, and a remarkably concise, but accurate, statement about the importance of biodiversity. The authors of this piece, Graham Forbes and Laurence D.M. Packer, go on to say

"Biodiversity is the means towards clean water, abundant wildlife, resilience to damage caused by human activity and the productivity of agriculture, fisheries and forestry."

The value of biodiversity, both in terms of its intrinsic value and what it provides to people was the driving force behind the development of the Convention on Biological Diversity, an international treaty signed by nearly every country in the world. 2010 was declared the International Year of Biodiversity by the United Nations, marked by goals to diminish the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. Frustratingly, little progress has been made toward these 2010 Targets; if anything, threats to biodiversity are only getting worse. According to a report by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, 16 928 species are threatened with extinction -- of just the 2.7 percent of described species analyzed in the report. That's about one third of amphibians, a quarter of mammals, and one eighth of bird species.

Conservation is not only about saving endangered species -- it is about saving functional ecosystems that are vitally important for all of us. In the short term, those of us in developed nations may feel insulated from the loss of biodiversity, but it is the world's poorest nations that are most dependent on biodiversity for food and numerous other vital ecosystem services, and for many people, the loss of biodiversity is catastrophic. Saving biodiversity matters very much.